Say Something (I'm Giving Up On You)
by grumkinsnark
Summary: She doesn't ask him for flowers anymore.


_Prompt: I won't ask you for flowers anymore._

 _For the record, I definitely don't think Rhaegar was a rapist, and that Lyanna went with him willingly at the outset, but I also find it hard to believe she would be totally content hanging out in a random tower in Dorne for a year. While he likely wasn't unkind per se, the prophecy definitely impaired his ability to make good judgments. For my own sanity, I'm leery of labeling it pure non-con, but dub-con is probably accurate. Had Lyanna lived, I imagine she'd have quite a few words for him._

* * *

 **Say Something (I'm Giving Up On You)**

* * *

She meets him mere miles away from where they met: from that haunted castle blackened by dragonfire.

(That should have been her first clue.)

He'd put a wreath of blue winter roses on her head; to everyone else, simply because he found her wolfish fierceness beautiful. To the two of them—to _only_ the two of them—it was for valor, for bravery, for talent, for unseating three dishonorable squires in the name of a crannogman. She'd found it at once mortifying and flattering. He shouldn't have shamed his wife like that, but by the same token, that crown was the only recognition she'd ever get for not being a proper lady.

He wrote to her only once after that, a short, hasty letter, weeks after her wedding date had been set, as if he _knew_.

 _Lyanna—I can take you away from him, from all of them. You needn't be confined by your sex anymore, by your station._ _Leave with me and you'll be free. I'll be waiting on the eastern shore of God's Eye lake a fortnight before your brother's wedding. I hope to see you there._

And she'd gone, without hardly a second thought. She'd gone, and they'd married in sight of the old gods with only his dearest friend as a witness. Not a marriage of love, of course, she hadn't even known what "love" _was_. No, they'd married so not even Robert Baratheon could concoct a way to force her acceptance of their betrothal.

And he'd whisked her away to Dorne, to a tall, tall tower with the Red Mountains at their backs, and he'd promised her the world.

For a few months, she _was_ happy. History wouldn't tell it that way, and eventually it got hard to remember herself, but she was. He'd spend days singing songs meant only for her and reading fantastical stories, and she convinced Ser Arthur to help hone her swordfighting, and there were no expectations pressed on her: it was bliss, utter bliss. He would bring her winter roses and even though they wilted within days in the hot Dornish sun, they smelled of home and hope.

Six moons after her fifteenth name day, Ser Arthur worked her especially hard and she flounced up the tower steps sweaty as a pig and red as a cherry but exulted. And his eyes had gone dark, more black than purple and he'd kissed her, pressed her against the wall with his lean, hard body bracketing hers. And though she'd never kissed anyone before, she was a quick learner, and soon they'd moved to the bed in a daze of ripped clothes and breathy moans. It didn't hurt when he entered her like everyone warned, just a mild pinch and then pleasure and he was attentive and soft and it was better than the raunchy stablehands bragged.

When she missed her moon blood, she hadn't thought much of it; she'd always been irregular. But when it hadn't come for three straight months, when her breasts got tender and her stomach queasy, she knew what it was. She got scared— _this wasn't supposed to happen! I'm only five-and-ten_ —and he'd been so happy it was almost unnerving. He'd been convinced the babe growing inside her was a girl, picked a name so quickly she couldn't help but wonder if, unlike her, he'd _wanted_ this to happen.

And as her belly grew, she began to realize: that's _exactly_ what he'd wanted.

 _What if it's a boy?_ she remembers asking. _What's wrong with a boy? We could name him Brandon. I know he's a bit wild, but his heart is true. Or maybe Eddard, who hasn't a single mean bone in his body._

 _It won't be_ , he'd replied curtly. _The babe you bear is a girl, my Visenya, and she shall save the world._

The swordfighting lessons stopped immediately, her blunted practice sword vanishing, and before long he'd spirited a woman into the tower, some young midwife from Starfall. The woman was kind, she supposed, but blunt. Efficient. Secretive.

Her bed was moved away from the window— _we can't risk you overheating, sweetling_ —into the dark edge of the room, he spent yet more time reading, none of it aloud, his songs growing more melancholy. It wasn't all bad: every now and then he would get that _look_ on his face, the one he'd had in the beginning, and he'd kiss her and massage her back that ached so and pleasure her with his fingers or his tongue so thoroughly she'd forget her own name.

She wrote letters regularly, every two weeks or so, to each brother and her father—even Robert, once—explaining everything, asking for forgiveness. They never replied, which at first she'd chalked up to them being angry. It wasn't for quite some time that she wondered whether they'd ever received them at all. Ser Arthur was always so kind to her, but she wasn't his prince, she wasn't his commander, and mayhaps he'd never sent her letters after all.

As she gets closer to birth, he pays her less and less attention, sparing his thoughts and pretty words for the babe, as if she's merely a vessel. It gives her the courage to ask, _Is this why you ran away with me? Because your wife_ _couldn't bear you any more children? Did you care about her at all? Do you even care about the children she nearly died to give you?_

He doesn't answer—he so rarely answers anything these days—except for one concession: _Of course I love my children._

Elia is left out of the equation entirely, and for the first time, she thinks of the other woman, how she must be feeling. Left in the dragon's den with a mad king and two small children to raise, and a husband who'd holed up with a fifteen-year-old girl. She weeps that night, whispers to the arid breeze, _I'm sorry, Elia. I didn't mean for this to happen. Forgive me._

He announces he has to leave suddenly, when she's just eight weeks from her due date, but he won't tell her why, just that it's urgent. He'll be back before she knows it, he says, certainly before the baby comes, and not to worry. He asks her if there's anything he can get her before he departs, but she stays silent, just stares out the window.

 _Flowers_ , she would have said once. _Those pretty winter roses, or those ones the color of sunshine that grow after a snowmelt._

Not now. She doesn't ask for flowers anymore.

 _It wasn't a frivolous matter, was it?_ she demands a month into his absence. _Please don't lie to me. He did enough of that._

Arthur looks at her with such _pity_ that she wants to slap him. _No, my lady,_ he says. _There is a war going on._

He tells her why, he tells her what happened, he divulges everything. Tells her how Brandon had ignored his wedding in favor of demanding the prince's head and how he'd strangled himself while her father burned inside a suit of armor. How her former betrothed now battles her baby's father, ostensibly in her name.

Lightheaded, she sits down on the bed, and it's then that she feels it—a trickling down her legs and a sharp pain in her abdomen, and all she can think is, _No, it's too soon_ and, to her shame, _You said you'd be here! I can't do this without you, please come back_ as though he hasn't for so long been a different person than the one with whom she absconded.

Rather horrified, Arthur asks how he can help.

 _I want to go home_ , she begs, right before a wave of agony steals her breath.

 _I'm sorry_ , says Ser Arthur Dayne. _You're not going anywhere._


End file.
